Appeals court rejects Newell victim’s suit

Thursday

Aug 3, 2017 at 8:48 PMAug 3, 2017 at 8:48 PM

Howard Frank Pocono Record Writer @PoconoHFrank

A federal appeals court rejected a civil rights lawsuit filed by victims against Ross Township officials for the shooting deaths and injuries inflicted by a township resident during a township meeting in 2013.

Rockne Newell, 63, of Saylorsburg, had been feuding with township officials over his junk strewn property, and sprayed gunfire in the meeting room, killing three and seriously wounding a fourth victim.

The appeal followed a decision in the lower court to throw out the lawsuit, whose defendants included the supervisors and township solicitor.

The defendants in the case, some representing the victims of the shooting, sued officials for not having foreseen and prevented the shootings from happening.

On August 3, 2017, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Newell stated no claim against the defendants based on the principal that government officials have no general duty to protect the public from harm caused by private actors, according to Jerry Geiger of Newman Williams Stroudsburg Attorneys at Law, who represented Monroe County Sheriff Todd Martin and Ross Township Solicitor John Dunn.

“Dunn and Todd Martin and the supervisors are out of the case, but it doesn’t make us any less sympathetic to the victims,” Geiger said.

The Court ruled that the plaintiffs’ claims were simply too tenuous to hold township officials liable.

Newell had a nearly 20-year running dispute with the township over code violations on his property, including open sewage, a large junk collection scattered in his yard and several non-permitted structures on the property where he lived.

The township finally condemned his property and sold it at a sheriff’s sale in July 2013. Newell arrived during the Monday night, Aug. 5, 2013 meeting and began shooting. Newell shot up the meeting room, but his bullets never reached the supervisors.

Three separate lawsuits were filed against officials, but were consolidated since it all raised the same issues.

“The Court held that the harm here was not a foreseeable or fairly direct consequence of defendants’ actions,” Geiger said. "(The court) stated that it could not conclude that Newell’s act of murdering township residents at a public mass shooting was a direct or foreseeable consequence of enforcing zoning ordinances and satisfying a judgment.”

The Third Circuit was also sympathetic to the plaintiffs although unconvinced they stated a claim, Geiger said.

“In denying Plaintiffs’ claims and affirming the District Court, we by no means wish to diminish the devastation wreaked by this unspeakably horrifying, senseless, and tragic act of violence,” the court said. “Furthermore, we are not insensitive to the extraordinary disruption that Newell’s actions caused everyone in the community. However, binding precedent of our own court and the Supreme Court of the United States limits the extent to which liability can be imposed on state or municipal actors based on the criminal actions of third parties.”